Tour of our sites in Cleveland with the OARDC Associate Director

Today we gave Bill Ravlin, the Associate Director for OARDC, a tour of our field sites in Cleveland. He was very interested in the research being conducted by our graduate students. We visited one of the vacant lots which typically consist of mowed turf, weeds, and the occasional tire.

Some ornamental plants remain behind as a reminder of the homeowner who once lived on the lot. After the homes are empty the city knocks them down, the basement is filled in, and the turf is planted which then needs to be maintained at an immense cost to the city. Cleveland has a goal of demolishing 25 vacant homes every week.

We took some time to visit the urban gardens which are on land that had previously been vacant lots. Our research is mainly focused on how the re-purposed vacant lots change the arthropod community as well as the ecological services they provide. Some of these gardens are maintained by Green Corps who bring in high school kids from the surrounding area to work and learn about farming, running a business, and maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Many of these kids are then inspired to go to College and earn degrees where they can use these skills. Mike, a high school student working at one of the gardens, gave us a tour and told us about his plans to double major in landscape architecture and mechanical engineering.

We got a chance to meet up with Caitlin during a busy day in the field. She described her project involving spider activity in the vacant lots, urban garden, and grassland sites across Cleveland.

Overall the trip was a success! Bill got a chance to learn about research funded partly by the SEEDS grant foundation, which he is very involved in. We had a chance to showcase issues in Cleveland, practices done to manage all the vacant land, and how our research is helping the city further understand the impact these changes are having on the ecology of the area.

Thanks for taking the time to talk with us Bill!